Monday, February 10, 2014

Court Appointed Custody Evaluator Is Immune, Right or Wrong

The mother in a child custody fight sued a
psychologist who was acting as a child custody evaluator, appointed by
the court as neutral expert under Evidence Code § 730. The psychologist
allegedly wrote a biased custody report and issued
some interim custody orders adverse to the plaintiff under authority
that had been delegated to him by the court. Plaintiff sued for breach
of contract, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional
distress, but the trial court granted defendant’s demurrer,
dismissing the case because the psychologist, who was acting under the
auspices of the court, was protected by absolute quasi-judicial
immunity. The court of appeal affirms. Generally, on-all-fours precedent
has held that family law custody evaluators and
other retained neutrals acting pursuant to the authority of the court
are entitled to quasi-judicial immunity. It is true that, in this case,
the family court judge may not have had the authority to delegate the
authority to issue interim custody orders to
a custody evaluator. But that did not vitiate the immunity, which
affords absolute protection for “all judicially-related actions
regardless of whether the judicial officer exceeded his or her legal
authority or jurisdiction to act.” Here “all of the actions
complained of were well within [the psychologist]’s judicially
delegated role as a family court child custody evaluator, whether or not
such delegation was legally authorized[.]” Thus, because the
psychologist was effectively acting as a deputized officer
of the court, he was entitled to quasi-judicial immunity and a demurrer
was properly sustained.